official ATi 8.1 driver out!

[newls1]

Anyone try the official ATi 8.1 driver yet? Is there a performance boost with the 3870's?

[fragmasterMax]

I would love to see what kind of CF optimisations came out with this one.
If CF works reliably with supcom, crysis, and fear extraction point, i might roll the dice on two 2900pros

[purecain]

ok we now have an extra tool... Crossfire Diagnostics....
it doesnt work..... in fact it doesnt even try to work.... lol
well at least they're trying....
just going to test crysis now...
tested crysis... no improvement.... still have the buggy slowdowns...

[xMrBunglex]

i never thought it was possible to have feelings for a video driver, but i'm getting a little choked up here. anyone with CrossFire that plays CoD4 will understand. the flicker is gone. everything is beautiful. high framerate, max settings, no flicker. it's so nice to have higher fps than an 8800 Ultra with perfect image quality. this driver rocks.

[sean_php]

i never thought it was possible to have feelings for a video driver, but i'm getting a little choked up here. anyone with CrossFire that plays CoD4 will understand. the flicker is gone. everything is beautiful. high framerate, max settings, no flicker. it's so nice to have higher fps than an 8800 Ultra with perfect image quality. this driver rocks.

So you are happy with 8.1 & CoD4?

Running CoD4 with 3870 crossfire and Catalyst 7.12 was so awful for me, there was some major slow downs during the game, but when I tried just 1 card it was great. now you say crossfire is better than before with COD4? I will try it after your confirmation might!

I heard it's still buggy with crysis too.

I just bought this two red devils for playing crysis but no success

[newls1]

i never thought it was possible to have feelings for a video driver, but i'm getting a little choked up here. anyone with CrossFire that plays CoD4 will understand. the flicker is gone. everything is beautiful. high framerate, max settings, no flicker. it's so nice to have higher fps than an 8800 Ultra with perfect image quality. this driver rocks.

YUP! This driver seems to be a great one. Even windows acceleration seems to be smoother. UT3 plays nicely with more consistant smoothness.

[xMrBunglex]

So you are happy with 8.1 & CoD4?

Running CoD4 with 3870 crossfire and Catalyst 7.12 was so awful for me, there was some major slow downs during the game, but when I tried just 1 card it was great. now you say crossfire is better than before with COD4? I will try it after your confirmation might!

i doubt it improved my framerate, but it got rid of that occasional color distortion. i ran CoD4 with my framerate uncapped for an hour and everything was perfectly clear.

the trick to great frames in CoD4 with CrossFire is to turn Water Detail level down in the Graphics menu. i have no idea why, but it gives me a framerate boost in all maps, whether they have water or not.

i run 4xAA, 4xAF, low Water Detail, and everything else max @ 1680x1050 and average 80-120 fps outside and 200+ fps inside on the MP maps.

[MadDias]

installed the new cat8.1 on winxp and wanted to run 3dmark06...
loading screen for "return to proxycon" was flickering like crazy and then the screen went black.. hitting ctrl+alt+del like a mad man finally brought me back to desktop. uninstalled the drivers, reinstalled them again, but still them same.
no 3dmark06 with cat8.1 for me..
didn´t bother to try anything else.
this driver is a pure joke.. not even overdrive is working, just says "please try again later". when later?? in cat8.2 or what?

[newls1]

installed the new cat8.1 on winxp and wanted to run 3dmark06...
loading screen for "return to proxycon" was flickering like crazy and then the screen went black.. hitting ctrl+alt+del like a mad man finally brought me back to desktop. uninstalled the drivers, reinstalled them again, but still them same.
no 3dmark06 with cat8.1 for me..
didn´t bother to try anything else.
this driver is a pure joke.. not even overdrive is working, just says "please try again later". when later?? in cat8.2 or what?

you have an isolated issue, its not the drivers, or you need to do a "driver cleaner" run in safe mode prior to installing the drivers.

[xMrBunglex]

Newls1 is right. i haven't heard anyone else having problems with 3DMark or Overdrive with this driver. your problem lies elsewhere.

and i don't get why people always run 3Dmark right away when a new driver comes out. we should all know by now that 3DMark is probably the first program to get optimized when a new video card comes out. the odds of getting a big 3DM score boost on a year-old video card like the 2900 are slim to none.

[MadDias]

maybe it´s an isolated issue.. not everyone is running the first gen crossfire chipset with video cards that aren´t even one year old.
i´ve tried everything possible. normal uninstall with the uninstall utility, driver cleaner in safe mode, installing over an existing cat-driver...
nothing works.
i didn´t run 3dmark06 just to expect a huge boost in scores... it´s just a way to see if the driver works as good as the last one i installed in few seconds, without having to load a game and perhaps have to use fraps to see it. and as far as my testing goes cat8.1 doesn´t work at all on my system.
i´ll write ati about this issue and hope to get a better answer than last time when i asked "why is crossfire not recognized by software like Steam or 3dmark in Vista?"

[Hockster]

ok we now have an extra tool... Crossfire Diagnostics....
it doesnt work..... in fact it doesnt even try to work.... lol
well at least they're trying....
just going to test crysis now...
tested crysis... no improvement.... still have the buggy slowdowns...

Tried the Hotfix?

An 8.1 hotfix has also been released:
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/d...estionID=31625

This hotfix resolves the following issues:

* Fix for problems with DirectX and Radeon AGP Graphics cards.
* Crysis: DirectX 10 Performance optimizations using Crossfire

To download the Catalyst 8.1 Hotfix, please click on the links below:

Catalyst 8.1 Hotfix for Windows XP Professional and Home Edition
Catalyst 8.1 Hotfix for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Catalyst 8.1 Hotfix for Windows Vista 32-bit Edition
Catalyst 8.1 Hotfix for Windows Vista 64-bit Edition

[purecain]

just spotted the hotfix.... cant believe i didnt see it... i'm tired man... dllin the hotfix for a test now....

[MadDias]

thx for the link to the hotfix Hockster!
after installing the hotfix driver i could finally get the official cat8.1 to install properly.

[blargman]

anyone know if this driver adds support for 3 or 4 cards? i'm going to throw my other 2 in and see if I see any performance increase in 3dmark

[newls1]

anyone know if this driver adds support for 3 or 4 cards? i'm going to throw my other 2 in and see if I see any performance increase in 3dmark

why dont you try and let us know

[xMrBunglex]

i heard it doesn't. i thought we were supposed to have CFX by now.

[Truckchase!]

Here are perf results. Sorry, I skipped 7.12 because of the overdrive issue with modded BIOSes that ZenEffect solved, so this is a 7.11 to 8.1 comparo. System as in sig, tests at 1600x1200x32 w/ 4xAA and 16xAniso. Tests are on x64 install of Vista.

Long post, bear with me.. (too lazy to make graphs tonight)

First, 7.11:
Benchmark Log File created on 1/12/2008 at 11:05:00 AM

Number of cores 2
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz
Core Stepping B2
Core Speed 3520.3 MHz (8.0 x 440.0 MHz)
Stock frequency 2400 MHz
L2 cache 4096 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size

Northbridge Intel P35/G33/G31 rev. A2

Memory Size 4096 MBytes
Memory Frequency 550.0 MHz (4:5)
CAS# 5.0
RAS# to CAS# 5
RAS# Precharge 5
Cycle Time (tRAS) 15

DMI BIOS
date 12/10/2007
Motherboard Info
vendor ASUSTeK Computer INC.
model P5K Deluxe
Windows Version Microsoft Windows Vista (6.0) Business Edition (Build 6000)
DirectX Version 10.0

Video:ATIx2900xt 512MB 1.3v ModBios @ 918/1836 Catalyst 7.11
Audio:Sound Blaster X-fi Fatal1ty

Tests performed at 1600x1200x32, 4x FSAA & 16x Anistropic (Quality setting)
************************************************** ******************************

Results for Quake2:
Result 1:486.4
Result 2:489.3
Result 3:489.4
Result 4:488.9
AVERAGE FPS: 489.1
***************************************

Results for Quake3:
Result 1:338.6
Result 2:344.4
Result 3:345.0
Result 4:336.2
AVERAGE FPS: 341.5
***************************************

Results for UT2004FlyBy:
Result 1:267.2
Result 2:267.0
Result 3:267.3
Result 4:267.4
AVERAGE FPS: 267.25
***************************************

Results for UT2004Botmatch:
Result 1:74.58
Result 2:75.03
Result 3:76.24
AVERAGE FPS: 75.03
***************************************

Results for Comanche4:
Result 1:110.1
Result 2:111.4
Result 3:111.3
AVERAGE FPS: 111.3
***************************************

Results for FarCry:
Result 1:97.04
Result 2:97.46
Result 3:97.47
AVERAGE FPS: 97.46
***************************************

Results for HalfLife2:
Result 1:136.7
Result 2:136.8
Result 3:137.0
AVERAGE FPS: 136.8
***************************************

Results for SeriousSam2:
Result 1:92.5
Result 2:92.4
Result 3:92.4
AVERAGE FPS: 92.4
***************************************

Results for Doom3:
Result 1:134.7
Result 2:134.9
Result 3:134.7
AVERAGE FPS: 134.7
***************************************

Results for HalfLife2_Lost_Coast:
Result 1: 78.1
Result 2: 78.1
Result 3: 78.2
AVERAGE FPS: 78.1
***************************************

Results for Quake4:
Result 1:95.22
Result 2:95.06
AVERAGE FPS: 95.14
***************************************

Results for SplinterCell_Chaos_Theory: (Note that AA settings do not apply to Splinter Cell + HDR)
Result 1:119.6
Result 2:119.6
Result 3:119.6
AVERAGE FPS: 119.6
***************************************

Results for Supreme_Commander:
Result 1:35.766
AVERAGE FPS: 35.77
***************************************

Results for Company_of_Heroes_DX9:
Result 1:88.82
Result 2:92.27
AVERAGE FPS: 90.54
***************************************

Results for Company_of_Heroes_DX10:
Result 1:31.32
Result 2:31.01
AVERAGE FPS: 31.16
***************************************

Benchmarks finished at 12:07:03 PM

***************************************
GRINGOMARKtm=69
***************************************

Now 8.1

Benchmark Log File created on 1/19/2008 at 3:26:06 AM

Number of cores 2
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz
Core Stepping B2
Core Speed 3520.0 MHz (8.0 x 440.0 MHz)
Stock frequency 2400 MHz
L2 cache 4096 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size

Northbridge Intel P35/G33/G31 rev. A2

Memory Size 4096 MBytes
Memory Frequency 550.0 MHz (4:5)
CAS# 5.0
RAS# to CAS# 5
RAS# Precharge 5
Cycle Time (tRAS) 15

DMI BIOS
date 12/10/2007
Motherboard Info
vendor ASUSTeK Computer INC.
model P5K Deluxe
Windows Version Microsoft Windows Vista (6.0) Business Edition (Build 6000)
DirectX Version 10.0

Video:ATIx2900xt 512MB 1.3v ModBios @ 918/1836 Catalyst 8.1
Audio:Sound Blaster X-fi Fatal1ty

Tests performed at 1600x1200x32, 4x FSAA & 16x Anistropic (Quality setting)
************************************************** ******************************

Results for Quake2:
Result 1:492.6
Result 2:492.2
Result 3:491.7
Result 4:494.2
AVERAGE FPS: 492.4
***************************************

Results for Quake3:
Result 1:346.1
Result 2:346.4
Result 3:344.6
Result 4:345.8
AVERAGE FPS: 345.95
***************************************

Results for UT2004FlyBy:
Result 1:272.3
Result 2:272.2
Result 3:272.1
Result 4:272.4
AVERAGE FPS: 272.25
***************************************

Results for UT2004Botmatch:
Result 1:76.28
Result 2:76.05
Result 3:75.33
AVERAGE FPS: 76.05
***************************************

Results for Comanche4:
Result 1:109.4
Result 2:111.8
Result 3:111.8
AVERAGE FPS: 111.8
***************************************

Results for FarCry:
Result 1:97.64
Result 2:97.61
Result 3:97.87
AVERAGE FPS: 97.64
***************************************

Results for HalfLife2:
Result 1:136.5
Result 2:136.6
Result 3:136.6
AVERAGE FPS: 136.6
***************************************

Results for SeriousSam2:
Result 1:94.1
Result 2:93.9
Result 3:93.9
AVERAGE FPS: 93.9
***************************************

Results for Doom3:
Result 1:136.1
Result 2:137.1
Result 3:132.9
AVERAGE FPS: 136.1
***************************************

Results for HalfLife2_Lost_Coast:
Result 1: 79.0
Result 2: 79.1
Result 3: 79.0
AVERAGE FPS: 79
***************************************

Results for Quake4:
Result 1:95.76
Result 2:96.58
AVERAGE FPS: 96.17
***************************************

Results for SplinterCell_Chaos_Theory: (Note that AA settings do not apply to Splinter Cell + HDR)
Result 1:119.3
Result 2:119.4
Result 3:119.3
AVERAGE FPS: 119.3
***************************************

Results for Supreme_Commander:
Result 1:34.413
AVERAGE FPS: 34.41
***************************************

Results for Company_of_Heroes_DX9:
Result 1:93.35
Result 2:91.56
AVERAGE FPS: 92.46
***************************************

Results for Company_of_Heroes_DX10:
Result 1:32.61
Result 2:31.84
AVERAGE FPS: 32.22
***************************************

Benchmarks finished at 4:27:54 AM

***************************************
GRINGOMARKtm=70
***************************************


Small increase. Yay. Best increase in the last 5 driver releases, but that still doesn't say much.....

[xMrBunglex]

the Company of Heroes DX9 vs. DX10 framerate speaks volumes. didn't Microsoft promise DX10 would be more efficient? it's a joke. i'm skipping Vista. there is nothing about it that i want.

[Viss]

i doubt it improved my framerate, but it got rid of that occasional color distortion. i ran CoD4 with my framerate uncapped for an hour and everything was perfectly clear.

the trick to great frames in CoD4 with CrossFire is to turn Water Detail level down in the Graphics menu. i have no idea why, but it gives me a framerate boost in all maps, whether they have water or not.

i run 4xAA, 4xAF, low Water Detail, and everything else max @ 1680x1050 and average 80-120 fps outside and 200+ fps inside on the MP maps.

Interesting part about water detail, ill give that a go tonight. Now running Q9550 at 3600mhz, 4x1Gb Ballistix and 3870CF on Maximus. 1680/1050 everything highest gives me 95FPS max in COD4. Thats about the same for me as with 7.12.

[demowhc]

Interesting part about water detail, ill give that a go tonight. Now running Q9550 at 3600mhz, 4x1Gb Ballistix and 3870CF on Maximus. 1680/1050 everything highest gives me 95FPS max in COD4. Thats about the same for me as with 7.12.

thats strange i get way more than 95 with 2900 CF

did you uncap the frame rate? /com_maxfps 0

[Truckchase!]

the Company of Heroes DX9 vs. DX10 framerate speaks volumes. didn't Microsoft promise DX10 would be more efficient? it's a joke. i'm skipping Vista. there is nothing about it that i want.

The DX10 version adds quite a bit graphically speaking. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

[Viss]

thats strange i get way more than 95 with 2900 CF

did you uncap the frame rate? /com_maxfps 0

That certainly helps m8, didnt know that, thanks

[xMrBunglex]

Truck, thank you for the in depth benches. that obviously took a lot of time to run. i really appreciate you posting all that info up here for us.